The Citizenship Rights Protection Coordination Committee will launch a movement in Assam’s Barak Valley, demanding extension of date of final NRC publication in Assam. Its members will also stage dharnas at the headquarters of the valley’s three districts, Silchar, Karimganj and Hailakandi, in the first week of June.
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) enlists the names of genuine Indian citizens. It is being updated in Assam since 2013 under the Supreme Court’s monitoring. A part draft NRC was released on the midnight of December 31, 2017 and the complete draft on July 30, 2018. The final NRC is scheduled to be released on July 31, 2019.
The NRC is being updated in Assam to include the names of those persons (or their descendants) who appear in NRC 1951, any electoral roll or any other admissible documents up to the midnight of March 24, 1971, which would prove their presence in Assam or in any part of India on or before the cut-off date mentioned in the Assam Accord in a bid to detect and deport foreigners.
The committee’s president and former vice-chancellor of Assam University, Tapadhir Bhattacharjee, said they were fighting against harassment of genuine citizens in the name of document verification and collection of biometric proof.
He alleged that the NRC authorities at times send several notices to the same person from different, at times distant, places of the state. The poor face extreme hardship in attending the hearings with family members, as this involves a huge amount of expenditure.
Bhattacharjee said they were organising mass conventions in Barak Valley for spreading awareness.
He said the government was sending “foreigner” or “D-voter” notices without knowing the person and demanded that these people be allowed to prove their citizenship before being taking to detention camps. He alleged that the detainees were kept with criminals (the camps are set up in jails) without treatment and other basic amenities, leading to torture.
He said they would meet Assam NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela and hand over to him a 10-point charter of demand. Their primary demand is to extend the date for publication of final NRC as they think it would not be possible to complete the entire verification within this period.
